Sunday, 9 September 2012

I'm still here

As you may imagine, I've been pretty busy over the past few months. There's been a lot to do and not much time to do it all in. I seem to be living out of a suitcase for a substantial amount of the time and the weeks have flown by as I try to get a grip on the things I need to learn and start getting plans for the future in place.

A number of people have suggested that I ought to continue the blog, to highlight the key things that I've learned and offer suggestions for those undertaking a new project. I like the idea of this; as I've said, I would really like this blog to have a more positive purpose and the concept of summaries would fit well with that.

I've started to put together a basic outline; it's still a work in progress, but I hope to be able to post some items on a regular basis. I'm going to say that I imagine that some people might not agree with some of the points I make; I think that's fine and I hope that you will feel free to add your comments where you think that I may not be on the right track.

Keep an eye open; I hope to get a few new postings out in the next few weeks, subject to my work permitting!

11 comments:

Hi,I found your blog searching for information on SAP and got caught up in your job hunting experiences.

I'm a long time user of accounting software but have never used SAP. This precludes me from applying for jobs I know that I could do blindfolded. I've been told that SAP is savagely user unfriendly. I'd greatly appreciate your thoughts on this and perhaps some reading material.

If you are looking for more general reading on how to implement SAP, I would highly recommend the "SAP Blue Book" by Michael Doane and with a couple of minor reservations, "Map of the Mindfield" by Stephen Burchall. Both provide some valuable insight into what is required and how to go about running the project. But neither will give you end user information.

There are some books by SAP Press; but they are expensive at $70 to $80 a pop. They don't have just one book covering all aspects of finance - there are a number of books that focus on various processes (e.g General ledger, account determination, accounts receiveable etc.) within the finance module. I would say that I felt they were aimed more at people that already had an understanding of the product and not really that suitable for a complete newbie. Even very experienced financial people found it hard going to learn to use even when they had complete access.

If you've not used SAP before, I would suggest that you would find it difficult to learn just from books without having some hands on experience. It's certainly not like a lot of other software - I would say that there are a lot of products out there that are easier to use out of the box (although I'm sure that SAP would disagree). In many cases, you have to have certain things already configured before you even try to start working with it.

There are some training courses run by SAP - again, they are not cheap. There are also some other organisations that provide training courses in SAP, although I would check with previous students how they felt about what they learned.

I will say tho' that there are companies that will take people on in finance that don't have SAP experience. These can be lower level jobs, but at least you would then get some of the hands on experience of the product that can then help you move on to areas where your other experience would be of value.

I think that "Map of the Mindefield" has some really useful information, especially about the implementation process and the way to approach it.

However, the copies that I've seen all have some really bad basic typographical errors. Not just some poor spelling, but the wrong words and some poor grammar in many places. (In a couple of instances, I thought that sections of text might be missing)

If the publisher were to go thru and tidy up the errors, I would probably be happy to give it 10 out of 10; but for now, I would have to say it is an 8.

I would also say that I still felt it was worth buying a number of copies which I then passed around to all of the senior managers and the Business Process Owners. I hoped that once they read this, it would help them to understand the overall project better. The response was mixed, but those that did actually read it, definitely gained something positive from the book.

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